Canada’s temporary foreign worker program is coming under fire after an unprecedented award by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario of more than $200,000 for two sisters from Mexico who alleged a sexually charged and threatening work environment at Presteve Foods Limited in Wheatley due primarily to its former owner.

The sisters, known only as O.P.T. and M.P.T., alleged that the fish processing and packaging plant’s former owner, Jose Pratas, 74, would routinely engage in acts of a sexual nature ranging from inappropriate touching to forced copulation, with Pratas threatening to send them back to Mexico if they did not comply or complained to authorities.

O.P.T., who had more serious complaints against Pratas, has been awarded $150,000 plus $14,956.50 in pre-judgment interest as compensation for “injury to to her dignity, feelings and self-respect” by the tribunal’s vice-chair Mark Hart, who heard the complaints during hearings in Windsor.

M.P.T. is awarded $50,000 plus $4,658.33 in pre-judgment interest.

The awards must be paid by Pratas and Presteve Foods, which is now owned by Pratas’s son. Combined they are the largest award in the tribunal’s history.

“I think this indictment is not only against Jose Pratas, but I think this indictment is against Canada’s foreign worker program.”

O.P.T., who does not speak English, issued her own statement.

“I want to tell all women that are in a similar situation, that they should not be silent and that there is justice and they should not just accept mistreatment or humiliation,” O.P.T. said.

“We must not stay silent. (As a migrant) one feels that she or he has to stay there (in the workplace) and there is nowhere to go or no one to talk to. Under the temporary foreign worker program, the boss has all the power — over your money, house, status, everything.

“They have you tied to their will. It has been eight years to obtain justice but eight years and justice is finally here today.”

She said Canada needs to change the current system.

“Under this system of work we are essentially owned,” O.B.T. said.

“If we don’t do what they say, they have the power to deport. We are obligated to work. Not as people, but as slaves. We endure wage theft, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and our bodies are injured because of the stress of the work. They push and push us. How can you say that we are free when in practice we have no right to leave?

“But how can we leave if we cannot work for another employer. They harm us, and then they send us home. There is racism underlying their treatment of us. How is this allowed in Canada? That happened to me eight years ago, and the system is still the same.

“Treat us with dignity. Not as animals. But as human beings who merit respect.”

Niki Lundquist, a Unifor lawyer who represented the sisters since they were Unifor members, criticized Canada’s foreign worker regime.

“While an absolute vindication for these women, the real takeaway from the case is that the temporary foreign worker program creates the conditions that allowed this exploitation to go unchecked,” said Lundquist.

“Handcuffing workers to employers creates vulnerability and without meaningful oversight, abuse is inevitable.”

In extremely graphic testimony contained in the tribunal’s 91-page judgment, O.B.T. describes a nearly constant feeling of being threatened and sexually harassed by Pratas from the time she arrived in Canada.

O.P.T. flew from Mexico to Toronto in early August 2007 and was driven to Wheatley along with M.P.T. and eight other workers.

O.P.T. testified that she met with Pratas and his wife that night and was assigned a bedroom with her sister and two other women.

The following day Pratas took the newly arrived women to Leamington to open bank accounts and purchase work gear.

O.P.T. testified that Pratas also took their passports, work permits, and so-called “green cards” that allowed them access to the Canadian health care system.

Pratas had the women sign a form granting permission for him to hold their documents for safe keeping, but O.P.T. testified she did not know what she was signing because she did not speak English.

O.P.T. testified that about a month after her arrival, Pratas began inviting her out to dinner on a date with him but when she said no he would begin yelling at her and threatening to send her back to Mexico.

Eventually she agreed to go to dinner because she wanted to remain in Canada and needed the job, she testified.

Pratas took her to restaurants in Tilbury and Chatham and during the drives he would often move his hand along both her legs and touch her vagina.

During one of the occasions in the car, O.P.T. testified that Pratas asked her to take her pants down but when she refused, he began to yell and again threatened to send her back to Mexico. Pratas also unzipped his fly and told O.P.T. to touch his erect penis, she testified.

Eventually Pratas would invite O.P.T. into his office at the plant, lock all the doors and have non-consensual sex with her.

O.P.T. ultimately fled Presteve in the spring of 2008, moved to Windsor to work before returning to Mexico in August 2008.

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